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“Don’t know. I swear it.”
“Who is this fucker again?” I say to Viper, raking my eyes over the mess of a man. I’m guessing he’s late forties, early fifties. Shirt and tie were clean on today, judging from the creases. Expensive Italian leather loafers... The guy has the cash, but he doesn’t have much of a face left.
“One of the casino owner’s security guys, or so he says.”
“Is he my ‘good surprise’?”
“Like I said, I’ll get to that in a minute. Don’t hold out on me now, sweetheart.” His voice drops to a dangerously low caress as he turns back to his victim. “You were just starting to make my dick hard.”
“Please don’t kill me.” The guy’s sobbing now, his tears leaving clean trails through all the red. “I don’t know why he called the meeting! No one does!”
“What’s with the horses?” Viper’s blade presses in deeper. Crimson beads start to form as the guy swallows nervously. “Has O’Sullivan got himself a new hobby?”
He nods with difficulty, wincing as the movement makes the blade bite into his skin even more. “One of his new fillies is running in the Novice Stakes at three p.m.”
“Why are you singing like a goddamn canary all of a sudden?”
“Mercy,” he says weakly, and I can barely contain my snort of laughter. That word is like a bad smell in this room, and no one’s claiming responsibility. “Listen, I can help you…”
Viper’s demeanour changes. Reeling backwards, he pulls the guy off the counter with a snarl and forces him to his knees. “Like you showed us fourteen years ago,Ronan.” he hisses. “When you held me down while O’Sullivan took my fingers, and then helped kick the shit out of Frankie here? I knew who you were the minute you stepped into the room.”
I stare down at the guy’s face again, and then I know.
Ronan Kelly.
The man who conspired with Guido Rossi and let me into O’Sullivan’s house that night.
One of the many who betrayed me.
One of the many who betrayed her.
“Mine.”
Another look passes between us. After a long beat, he lets go of Ronan’s sweat and blood-soaked hair and offers me the handle of his knife.
Flicking away my cigarette, I roll up my sleeves, my pulse rate slowing to that steady savage beat I know so well. This is my kill rhythm, when the world ceases to exist, and every hurt and wrongdoing in my past wraps her fingers over the eyes of my humanity; when I slide so close to the gates of hell, I can feel the heat on my skin.
Checking that Bambi’s still surfing the Internet, I nod at the guy standing next to the iDock and Rage Against The Machine gets ramped up to max again. With the music pounding through my veins, I take the outstretched knife and smile nastily at Viper.
“Time to show you how we mafia men like to do things, snake eyes.”
He returns my smile, revelling in the challenge. “Do your worst. Ten quid says I do it better.”
Make him suffer.
To his credit, Ronan doesn’t try and run. Not that he’d get very far. He played his last card, and it was a dud. Game over. Time to pay up.
“For what it’s worth, Lastra, I’m sorry.” He starts crying again, but all I see are Ada’s tears after Semenov swung his baseball bat at her legs.
“Were you there when Guido and O’Sullivan betrayed my family, too?” I murmur, testing the sharpness of the knife against my thumb pad, and relishing the bite when it makes a clean cut.
“Y-yes.”
“My sister?”
“Please…”
I nod coolly, accepting the guilt behind his petition, and then I go to work.
